


Want/Need

by Mizzy



Category: Leverage
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-07
Updated: 2011-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-21 03:12:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/220280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mizzy/pseuds/Mizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eliot's tired of Sophie using NLP on him to get him to do things for her.</p><p>The problem is, she isn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Want/Need

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fictionalfemme](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=fictionalfemme).



Although Sophie’s never told them where her apartment is, she’s not completely surprised to hear Eliot’s voice over the intercom, asking to be let in. Of  _course_  they all know where each other is at all times, it’s the way they are. But tonight’s different, and Sophie finds herself fumbling for the button to connect and let him in. She’s nervous, and it’s not something she’s felt for a long time, at least not without the thrill of adrenaline to push her into action.

Having a Hitter as good as Eliot on their way to anyone’s apartment when they’re alone would probably send anyone into nerves. Even if the week before had been normal, Sophie would have been nervous, but none of them have seen Eliot for days. 

It’s her fault, Sophie’s pretty sure. Nate wanted her to practice her NLP, so she was using them. Nate brought her coffee. Parker put ribbons in her hair. Hardison changed his start-up sounds to the twangy Calligraphy set he  _hated_. Eliot carried her shopping bags. Over the week, she got all four of them to do Nate’s chores – cleaning the fridge, sweeping the floors, taking out the garbage, doing the dishes. They all found it pretty funny when Nate told them all, (well, Hardison was vocal, because Hardison was vocal about everything) because it wasn’t much, and it meant Sophie was even more formidable a weapon in their arsenal.

But two days after that, Eliot just stormed out. They were calming down from yet another successful con, and he just, sort of,  _exploded_. Not with fists and violence, or words, but just in a rush of energy, like a windstorm sweeping him from the apartment. They haven’t seen him since.

Until now.

Something angered him enough to make him flee, and now he’s on his way to her door. He’s coming to her first, like it’s her fault.

Sophie pulls the latch from the door, and moves back. Sits on a stool in her white kitchen and waits, facing the door, back ramrod straight. Like she’s facing a firing squad.

The door opens, slowly. Eliot’s stood there, filling the doorway, looming like a shadow.

“Eliot?” She’s the first to speak, breaking the awkward silence. 

He steps forward into the light and says, “Stop it.” 

Sophie stares at him, tense and frightened. Eliot’s voice is raw, desperate, and it looks like he hasn’t slept in days. He hasn’t shaved either and his stubble stands out on his tired white skin, and the only colour on his face is the smudge of lavender and crimson of his swollen, sleep deprive eyelids.

Worry and confusion war in her stomach. She eventually manages, “Stop what?” which is less coherent then she planned, but it seems enough for Eliot.

“Stop  _it_. This, whatever it’s called, that Neuro Linguistic Programming shit. I’ll admit with the rest, it was sort of funny at first with the tea, and getting me to carry your shopping bags, and taking out the garbage, but this- this is beyond a joke. It’s not funny.” Eliot steps forwards, hair hanging shadows over his strained expression. He pushes the door behind him. It hits hard into the frame, gunshot smart.

“I don’t understand.” Sophie tilts her chin up, because she’s done nothing wrong. She knows she hasn’t. If Eliot has gone crazy and is here to kill her, well, so be it. Rather at his hands than anyone else’s, and lord knows she’s done enough in her past to earn death.

“You don’t-“ Eliot tips his head back, laughs even though it’s clear he’s not amused, and looks at her straight in the eyes. “Those little touches, those little signs you have been making ever since you told us you were working on your NLP. It is fantastic we have proof now of how excellent your skills are, but it has to stop. You have to make me stop wanting to kiss you, it’s ridiculously beyond the pale-“

Sophie manages a strangled sound in the back of her throat, and disbelief widens her eyes. “Uh- Eliot, I stopped practicing my NLP on Thursday. When Nate and I told you we had been practicing on you guys. Believe me, I felt pretty bad about it, but it was safer on you guys than on some random Marks, and I promise, I stopped. As soon as we told you. I didn’t use any NLP after that at all.”

Eliot’s turned into a statue. A trembling statue. He’s not a Grifter, not naturally anyhow, and as such he hasn’t really learned to hide his emotions. Suppress them, sure, but when he’s feeling them he’s as open as any book. Shame, disbelief, embarrassment, terror, they all flit across his face rapidly.

“I-“ His face shuts down. His jaw tenses. “Whatever you say.” He turns to flee.

“Eliot.” Sophie slips off the stool and grabs his wrist, her pale fingers circling the skin exposed there. He looks at her, reddened eyes slitting, observing her, obviously wondering if she’s lying and about to attempt it again. “I promise, I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t do that to you. Anything else you’re feeling- It’s you.”

Under her fingertips she can feel the thickening tension in his body. He’s ready to flee again. But he doesn’t. He takes a shuddering, stilted breath, and stares at her. His voice is cool and composed. “I don’t believe you.”

Sophie bristles – she can’t help it. It’s a struggle to be honest with these people 24/7, and she’s been trying her best, and she can’t help the sudden heat behind her eyes at his accusation. She channels the heat of the tears she wants to cry into her actions.

“If I wanted you to want to kiss me, I know how I’d do it. I’d mirror you. Every single action, every single flicker of movement on your face. Mirroring someone exactly is the best way to sneak in on their wavelength.” Sophie changes her stance to directly mirror his, taking her time to tense the same muscles he has tensed, the same mulish jut of her chin, so he knows she’s doing it. So he can see for himself. “Every time I use a positive word, I would make eye contact with you and touch my mouth. Joy, love, happiness, fun. You would associate my lips with positivity. I would push the weakest parts of my anatomy into your touch, the inside of my wrists-“ She twists her hands, pressing her pulse point up against his fingers. “I would use every word that sounds like  _kiss me_  and lean into you every single time. Kismet. Christmas. Miss me?” She leans in, breathing the last one against his cheek. 

His lips part, slightly, and Sophie drops hold of him, stepping back, stranding up straight. “I haven’t been.” She turns away from him then. Eliot’s proud. He won’t want her to see his embarrassment. There’s no way this situation can end without damaging his self esteem, and in turn, damaging the group.

Unless she does the one thing she doesn’t want.

Unless she plays him.

Sophie swallows down the faint taste of sickness in her mouth. Up til now she was just Sophie. Now, she’s someone new. Someone without a name. Someone she doesn’t want to be. The thrill of the identity settles on her, and her voice is steadier now she’s acting. “I ought to be as mad as you. Or haven’t you been using it on me?”

“You-“

Sophie whirls on her feet, dramatic. Playing this out like a romantic comedy, like it’s one of those hilarious misunderstandings, where the hero and heroine have been speaking a moment out of step the whole way through, and now, finally, at the denouement, everything’s going to work out. She hitches the right kind of vulnerability into her voice. “Haven’t you?”

“No, no. Never. I would never-“ The brightness comes back into Eliot’s face. His posture relaxes a little. He’s buying it. Of course he is. Sophie Devereaux’s a brilliant actor… when she’s on the Grift.

“ _Come here_ ,” Sophie whispers, and the character she’s playing thrills as Eliot kisses her. She tilts up onto her tiptoes, kissing him back hungrily, knowing this is what Eliot needs. She packages the girl called Sophie Devereaux away into the back of her mind, and let’s this Sophie free, this one that loves Eliot, this one that might be happy until all their cons come crashing down. 

And later, this new Sophie’s heart isn’t broken when Nate acts betrayed at this new development, because she’s already locked it clean away with her love for him. Sophie’s lost what she wants to keep what she needs. If it’s Nate, or herself, it doesn’t matter.

It’s already gone.


End file.
